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Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

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Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#331

Post by jseliger »

ghshephard wrote: post #228
abalone wrote: post #154

Every single person who has been misled into signing up for a recurring charge should do this one thing: Dispute the charge with their credit card company. You'll get your money back and it will issue a bunch of chargebacks to JustFab, which will penalize them financially. If enough people complain their penalties will escalate and their credit card processing rates will go through the roof. This is how the credit ca…

Totally not the case that you get your money back, at least with WellsFargo Visa, they will investigate to determine whether your card was used by some other party. Saying, "I didn't read the terms of the agreement" is not grounds for a chargeback. What's worse is when you've signed up for a One year recurring payment and you have to jump through hoops to cancel such as a registered letter to cancel. Wells fargo will…

Wells fargo will refuse to cancel for you, saying it is between you and the vendor. Further to that, you can't even cancel your credit card, as Wells Fargo will transfer the recurring charge to a new card.

That's not been my experience with AmEx. Some scammy company began billing me for monthly charges, and I couldn't get anywhere through the telephone number listed on the bill. I called AmEx, disputed the charges, and got all the money back—but the company kept charging me every month anyway! AmEx said they'd put a block on the company, and since then I've been fine.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#332

Post by tonywebster »

This sort of thing is infuriating. Nowhere on this page does it say "we will charge you every month." http://i.imgur.com/ctMDiCJ.png

I just went through the whole checkout process to see how bad it really is. There were upsell interstitials at least four times, they did the 20-minute countdown clock thing to add a little pressure, and the checkout page looked like I was getting boots for $19.95. If you look on the right side in pretty small grey text it says that you're activating your VIP membership. You have to read down several paragraphs to figure out what they're trying to get away with, and nowhere does it actually say in clear terms "we will charge you every month." Entering in your shipping and payment information and it again completely fails to indicate there's a monthly fee — just a little checkbox "I accept the terms..."

All the state attorney generals should join together to sue them and get their victims' money back. At least we know they have the cash to pay the settlement now thanks to RHO, Matrix, and TCV.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#333

Post by alan_cx »

ds_ wrote: post #275
vvvVVVvvv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference worth noticing is that albeit being a bit unclear, Amazon's Prime is far to be as shady as JustFab's darkpattern since there's a huge modal window popping during the order.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said 'basically the same thing'. They both deliberately mislead users into subscribing, Amazon is just more subtle.

It is nothing to do with doing the same thing or offering the same service, its about how its is sold to unsuspecting customers.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#334

Post by alan_cx »

znt wrote: post #259
jdh wrote: post #23

I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…

Thanks for being upfront about your affiliation with a shady business practice, this way startup founders can skip you right away when they look for credible investors.

Or, scam type start up founders know where to get investment from.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#335

Post by GrinningFool »

jdh wrote: post #23

I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…

" More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusually high for a subscription service."

In other words, nearly half of the people who get tricked into subscribing cancel?

Let's also not forget that this will typically be on a credit card - many consumers do not examine their statements closely and will just continue forking over minimum payment. (Of course we won't forget it - it's part of the business model, after all.)

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#337

Post by harryh »

jdh wrote: post #23

I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…

Josh, this is a bunch of malarky. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#338

Post by aioprisan »

cs702 wrote: post #278

JustFab is not a 'scam company' (in the sense that they may not be doing anything technically illegal), but they are using DARK DESIGN PATTERNS[1] to trick at least some people into doing things they don't want to do. The checkout page[2], in particular, seems designed specifically to trick people into signing up for recurring monthly charges. Any person who adds merchandise to the cart and then clicks the big 'Conti…

come on, it's a scam, pure and simple

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#339

Post by darkarmani »

halviti wrote: post #163
abalone wrote: post #154

Every single person who has been misled into signing up for a recurring charge should do this one thing: Dispute the charge with their credit card company. You'll get your money back and it will issue a bunch of chargebacks to JustFab, which will penalize them financially. If enough people complain their penalties will escalate and their credit card processing rates will go through the roof. This is how the credit ca…

Except for there is a time window for these sorts of things. His girlfriend isn't going to be able to dispute charges that are 8-months old.

That is the time window for chargebacks, but not for small claims court.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#340

Post by thegna »

calinet6 wrote: post #306
avalaunch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other commenters are being too nice in their replies. You're full of shit. JustFab is a shoe of the month club masquerading as a normal online shoe store. The VIP Membership Program is the essence of JustFab's business model and yet it's missing entirely from the home page of their site. It looks like any other shoe store. And yet you think it's clear that the user is being signed up for a shoe of the month membe…

Exactly. It's a bullshit scam. The entire page guides you into signing up for a "VIP" style, but always looks and feels like you're buying a single pair of shoes. It is a scam, plain and simple, and their recurring income is from the privilege of sending poor unwary consumers a new pair of shoes every single month without their full understanding. It's no better than the mail-order monthly subscription scams of olde.…

"It is a scam, plain and simple, and their recurring income is from the privilege of sending poor unwary consumers a new pair of shoes every single month without their full understanding."

Actually they don't send poor unwary consumers any shoes, they give poor unwary consumers "credits" which most likely got unnoticed and unused.

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